Trouble in Boston
by Elizabeth D. O'Connell
Summary: A simple job, body guarding a teenager turns into a full blown migraine for Steph and Ranger in Boston. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Woot! My first Stephanie Plum story, yay! There aren't really any spoilers, and I tried really hard to make it that way. If you find a spoiler I guess tell me. Also tell me if you like the story, or if you don't, or if you think I should just go get myself run over by a horse drawn carriege to put us all out of my (your) misery. Basically just someone please talk to me, I'm lonely...

Told in Steph's Veiw.

And so copyright lawyers don't hunt me down.

Disclaimer: Not Mine. Sad but true.

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My greatest goal in life is not to get shoot. Personally I think this is a great goal as I am constantly being shot at. Probably if I sat down and thought about this for a while I'd realize that this was a terrible goal. Luckily I try not to think about anything for too long, which could explain my current situation.

I was standing shin deep in what I was really hoping was just your average everyday mud, but with my luck it could also be bio-chemical runoff and I was about to turn into something with seven arms. I'd just tackled Johnny Scoresone after running a mile to catch him. He was 5'10", certifiably ugly (just the way I like them), not incredibly smart, and my latest FTA (or failure to appear for those of you not hip to bounty hunter lingo). I'd somehow managed to knock him out when I'd brought him down, this was completely by accident I'd actually just tripped and hit him in the head with my purse on the way down. I'd slipped cuffs on him before I stood, just to be on the safe side, but now I couldn't figure out what to do with him.

I'd been riding around in the Buick, or as I like to call it My Divine Punishment, (my own car now resting in car heaven, poor thing), looking for Scoresone but had left it parked a mile away. There was no way I was getting Scoresone all the way to my car. He wasn't a small man, and I wasn't exactly buff. More like I was opposite of buff. I was contemplating calling Lula, we could maybe get him into her Firebird if we both huffed and puffed ourselves out, but Lula wouldn't want him sitting in her car covered with mud. Maybe I could find something plastic to cover him with? I was still turning this over in my mind when a large, shiny black SUV rolled up.

"Yo." I said to Ranger as he came around to the passenger side of the SUV. I'd actually been trying to avoid him lately. And Morelli too. I had some things to work out and being around either of them complicated things. Ranger looked me up and down and I think he might have be contemplating smiling at my muddy state. "Laugh and die." I told him. He smiled for real at that. I gave him a death glare and was dissapointed, but not surprised, when it had no effect.

"Need some help, babe?" Ranger asked me.

"Actually yeah. Could you take him to the station for me? Pretty please?" I batted my eyes for effect. Ranger just raised a single eyebrow. I'd give anything to do that. When I tried to raise one eyebrow I just ended up looking constipated.

"Tank will take him. We have business." Oh shit. Nothing good ever came out of having business with Ranger, at least not for me. I was barely aware of Tank getting out of a second SUV and grabbing Scoresone up. He roughly stuffed Scoresone into the SUV before peeling out, heading towards downtown. In the mean time I was just standing around stupidly. Ranger took my eldow and guided me to his own SUV.

"I'll get it dirty." Manners made me say.

"It'll wash." He said as he opened the passenger door for me, shutting it once I sat down. He walked over to the driver's side and got in. Ranger slipped into his zone as he drove towards my apartment. I was trying not to smell myself. He pulled into my lot and we both got out and headed up to my place. When we got there I opened the door and Ranger went to check for monsters and gunmen hiding under my bed.

"Really need to get a mop under there, babe." He said when he was done. I stuck my tongue out at him and left him in the living room as I went to take a shower.

The shower was great. And when I came out of it I no longer stank or was muddy. I ran a comb through my hair and thought about blow drying it, but I'd already kept Ranger waiting fifteen minutes so I skipped it. I got dressed quickly in my standard uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. I looked over at my sneakers and felt my lip curl up at them. They were coated in mud and smelly, ew. I gingerly picked them up using only two fingers and carried them into my kitchen. I ignored Ranger on my couch as I found a plastic bag to put them in and threw them away.

"Well, you know what this means," I said to no one in particular. "shoe shopping time." Luckily I had some money in my account after catching Scoresone.

"Babe, we need to talk." Ranger had come up behind me. I hadn't seen or heard him do it and I jumped at his nearness.

"Holy Crap! Make some noise or something willya?" Ranger half-smiled at me before leading me to the couch. He sat at one end and I sat all the way on the other. I really didn't want to talk. Any conversation that began like this one was, wasn't a good conversation.

"I need to go up to Boston for a while." He said.

"Yeah okay. What's it got to do with me?" Usually when he left he either just got up and did so or caught me at the office to tell me to call Tank if I had any problems.

"I want you to come with me."

"Huh?" That's me, Ms. Eloquent.

"We're doing guard duty for a man and his family, including his teenage daughter." Apparently this was suppose to explain everything.

"And? Seems simple enough, why can't your Boston team handle it?" Frankly this conversation wasn't doing much for me. I was trying to avoid the men in my life, not go off with one of them to Boston.

"This man is very influential. He could mean a lot of business for Rangeman but he wants me to handle his case personally." Okay, that explained a little, but honestly getting information out of this man was harder than giving birth!

"AND?"

"The man doesn't want his daughter being guarded by a bunch of men." Oh.

"Oh."

"So, if you wouldn't mind, think you could play body guard for awhile?" Now here's the thing; I'm not a particularly good bounty hunter. Somehow I manage to have a good capture rate but it's completely by accident and seems to have nothing to do with me. The idea that I would make a good body guard is, well, laughable. I hate my gun and never carry it, I don't know any martial arts, I can't keep quiet it save my life, and I spend a large chunk of my life covered in someone else's food.

"Um, you really think that's a good idea?" Ranger smiled at me, 200-watts.

"I'll be beside you the entire time. Our employer has been recieving threats against him and his family, focused on his daughter for the most part. He wants me and a female employee to watch her."

"You don't have any female employees do you, and that's why you're asking me." That made sense. "What about Jeanne Ellen?"

"Babe." I guess that was my answer. I sat on the couch and I thought about things. Mostly I thought about the job in Boston, some I thought about dinner, and a little I thought about Ranger naked. After pushing dinner and naked Ranger out of my mind and focused on whether or not to say yes. Probably I wouldn't have to do much. Probably it would almost be like a vacation right? Probably I could handle this.

I hoped.

"Okay, so when do we leave for Boston?"

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Yay! First chapter done. Review Please insert puppy dog eyes here I'll try to update soon! 


	2. Chapter 2

Author Notes: Mwahaha. It's Chapter two! I'm afriad nothing much happens in this chapter, sorry, it just kinda setting up for the rest of the action to come later. I promise the next chapter will have more action in it. In the next chapter the actually arrive in Boston. If your wondering why I chose Boston here are the reasons: Ranger does have an office there, Boston is a big, busy city with lots of people, I know Boston really well, and I've never seen a story done there! Anyways enjoy the new chapter.

Disclaimer: Not mine and no amount of satan worship will make it so.

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I'd agreed to do the job but that meant I would have to pack for the job. I had problems with this for several reasons; one, I had never been to Boston before, two, I didn't know how long we'd be there, three, would I have to look really professional or not? I gave up trying to answer these questions on my own after about fifteen minutes. I grabbed my cell phone and pressed my speed dial for Ranger.

"Yo." He answered.

"I don't know what to pack!" I was sounding slightly crazed by this time. I'd put off packing until the last minute, not surprising, and now had two hours to get ready to leave.

"Try clothing, babe." I could feel the smile through the phone lines.

"Oh, ha ha." I sneered back. "What kind of clothing? How much? How long will we be gone anyway?" I should have asked earlier probably.

"Until the job is done." He said. Yeah, sure, that'll go over well with my mother, and I told him so. He said, "Babe." and proceeded to hang up on me.

"Insufferable man." I said to my closet. I had nothing more in the way of information after the call than I'd had before. Sighing I decided it was time for the woman's old stand-by when it came to packing. Pack EVERYTHING. Now I didn't have enough room in my suitcases for everything, so I packed some of everything. Suits, jeans, t-shirts, a sweat-shirt (it's summer but you never know), a swim suit (again, you never know), and some nicer pieces all got thrown in. My mother would be flabbergasted but I didn't have time to fold.

I dragged the suitcases behind me into the living room. I then did something I'd been dreading since I learned yesterday about this job: I called my mother.

"Hi mom."

"Stephanie, what did you blow up this time?" She said in a resigned kind of voice.

"Nothing! I just wanted to tell you that I was going away for a little while."

"Away? Away where?"

"To Boston, I'm going to help Ranger out with a job."

"Going away with Ranger? What will the neighbors think! And what about Joseph!" I knew what my mom was thinking. Joe would never marry me if I went off with other men.

"Mom, I'm going for a JOB. It's not a vacation. We'll be staying in different rooms." Why did every conversation with my mother make me want to bang my head against a table or something?

"Well, that's okay then." There was a pause when neither of us said anything. "Do you need me to come by to water your plants? Or what about Rex." Rex is my hamster room mate. Rex is great, he never hogs the remote.

"I don't have any plants." And I really didn't. Every now and then I'd buy one but I always forgot to water it. "And Lula is going to watch Rex for me. I just wanted to call you so you would worry when I left."

"Oh. When are you leaving?" Not soon enough I wanted to say.

"In an hour or so."

"You don't even think to call me until an hour before you leave?" The conversation was beginning to deteriorate.

"Sorry. It was kinda a last minute decision."

"Just be careful." She sighed. "And try not to blow anything up."

"It's not like I do it on purpose!" I cried in my defense.

"Humph." She said before hanging up. She must be getting phone tips from Ranger.

After that I had nothing to do. Lula had come by earlier and gotten Rex, telling me she'd watch the ass off him. I wasn't sure this was a good thing but the sentiment was nice I suppose. I'd already told Vinnie I'd be gone. He wasn't happy but I told him to just get Joyce Barndhart to trace skips and that cheered him a little, to my disgust. I'd also told Connie and Mary-Lou where I was going and who with. This got them both excited and they didn't want to listen when I told them it was for work.

Because I had nothing else to do I began to think. Unfortunately I didn't particularly like my thoughts. Honestly I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never been a body guard before. I would be a horrible body guard. Probably I would blow up the body I was suppose to be guarding. I'm not sure why Ranger thought I could do this, and then I remembered he didn't. He just needed to have someone female there, and for that I was qualified. Part of me was angry that Ranger didn't expect me to be a good body guard, but a larger part was just relieved. I was really hoping I didn't just make a fool out of myself.

Thinking was beginning to bore me, I was more an action kind of person, or a watch T.V. until I couldn't think kind of person. I still had half an hour to wait so I turned on the T.V. The news was playing; death, drugs, war, blah blah blah. Boring and depressing. I quickly changed the channel. I found some cartoons to watch, mindless and entertaining, perfect. Then half an hour later at precisely one in the afternoon I heard my door being opened. I knew it was Ranger so I didn't even turn around, just turned off my T.V. and grabbed my purse.

"Ready babe?" Ranger said looking at my bags.

"Yep, packed and everything." I said smiling brightly.

"More like packed everything." Ranger raised an eyebrow at my bags.

"You wouldn't tell me what I would need to pack! So I packed for every occasion." This got me a lip twitch.

"Come on." He grabbed my suitcases for me and stepped out into my hall. He waited while I locked my door. I'm not sure why I bothered. Anyone and everyone could, and probably had, broken into my apartment. Probably it was a prerequisite for graduation at the local high school. We stepped onto the empty elevator and rode down a floor.

Ranger stuffed my suitcases into the back of a shiny black SUV. I noticed one, much smaller than mine, suitcase already in there.

"Is that all you're bringing?" I didn't get an reply so I just assumed the answer was yes.

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Reviewer Replies: Yes that time of the story where I thank/insult my reviewers.

**Polysgirl**- No comment on pairings yet. It might even be no pairing XD I work really hard to stay in character for all the different characters. I might have slipped a little this chapter. I'm glad you like it so much so far.

**Silent Me-** I've never seen this idea either and it's part of the reason I wanted to do it so much. Thanks for your support.

**Jess-the-Complete-Loon-** My english teacher will be glad to hear that, haha.

**trialnerror- **I like to read stories that try to hold to the original author's way of writing, so thanks for telling me I'm suceeding in trying to write like that.

And thanks to: **Insulinde, Stephannie1014, Bine2889** for their support.

Review and you too will get a bold faced mention!


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